Part 3: Chapter 1

Sohee sat bolt upright in her bed with a gasp.  Images from her disconcerting dream lingered in her mind and she struggled to hold on to them and make sense of them despite her first instinct to be rid of them.  Slowly, they disappeared, slipping through her mental fingers until all she could see was her bedroom lit by pre-dawn light. 

“Another dream, honey?” Sohee’s mom asked softly from her bedroom doorway.  Sohee jumped at the unexpected voice, still on edge from the dream. 

“Yeah,” Sohee said and bit back her desire to say more.  Her mom had always seemed to know when she had a nightmare, even when she was a little kid.  They had had this conversation enough times that Sohee knew what her mother was going to tell her.  No matter what she said about her dream, it wouldn’t change her mom’s reaction.

“It’s only a nightmare, Sohee, just remember that it’s not real.”

Sohee nodded and let her mom kiss her forehead before they both returned to bed. 

But Sohee had a growing suspension that her mom was wrong.  The dreams were real.  And they were getting worse. 

Ever since Luhan had come to town, her dreams had taken on a different quality.  Even if she remembered nothing solid of the dream, the hazy images that remained were more vivid then they had once been.  And little bits were starting to show through.  Whereas her dreams had once merely left her with a bad feeling, now flashes of images remained in her mind when she woke as well as the cold shivers and the racing of her heart.  They were mostly flashes of the moon at different stages; full, new, eclipsed, blood red.  Other images left her feeling even more disconcerted.  Sharp bloodied fangs, a sword, jewels of a crown, an set of unfamiliar eyes that glows red.  But Sohee had no idea what they meant.

It had only been a handful of hours ago that Sohee had returned home after being kidnapped and Luhan nearly dying, and already she had something new to worry about.  The night before had been bad enough.  After Luhan had woken up, they had talked and wondered about his hair changing from blonde back to its natural black, but no one had seen what Sohee’s tears had done to Luhan’s tattoo.  And she didn’t plan to tell anyone.  It was just one more weird coincidence she didn’t need. 

Sohee laid back down in her bed and shut her eyes, but the thoughts tumbling through her head kept her awake until her alarm sounded.

When Luhan’s alarm went off, he opened blurry eyes and reached out to silence the noise.  His eyes eventually cleared enough to tell him that he hadn’t been asleep for very long.  But just thinking of the events of the night before had him sitting up in bed.  Just the fact that his wolf had quieted would have been enough to keep him up last night.  But when Luhan had returned home the night before he had immediately been able to tell that Kris had been there.  His scent had still lingered in the air so he hadn’t been gone long.

Luhan’s first reaction had been relief at the knowledge that Kris was okay.  But then Luhan had found the broken picture frame in the bedroom.  The shattered glass and broken frame were far enough away from the self that it hadn’t just fallen over.  It had broken while Kris was here; either by accident or on purpose.  Either way, he had left it the way it had fell with the picture face up, a younger Luhan and Kris gazing up through pieces of broken glass. 

Seeing that had forced Luhan to face some issues he hadn’t wanted to face.  Though he had kept it hidden from Kai and Old Man Kwon, Luhan had to admit to himself that the ritual Kris had performed had been the one that had released his wolf too early.  Kris had been the person his wolf had been connected to; a connection that had been broken the night before.  Had Kris been able to feel the break?  Had it just been an accident, the picture falling from his hand in surprise?

Or had Kris been angry that the connection had been broken;